Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2006. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references.

Personer som saknar förmåga att uppleva emotioner tar sämre livsbeslut trots en hög IQ. Somatiska markörer är förändringar i kroppens inre tillstånd som uppträder då vi ställs inför ett emotionellt laddat stimuli och deras funktion är att stödja beslutsfattandet. Genom erfarenhet lär vi oss tolka de emotioner som ett visst stimuli genererar som någonting positivt eller negativt för oss. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur medvetna positiva och negativa somatiska markörer upplevs vid stora livsbeslut. Semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med tolv personer. Resultatet visar på en mångfald av soma­t­iska markörer och att tilliten till somatiska markörer vid beslutsfattande varierar. Användningsområdet för studien är främst inom det kliniska området – att lära människor att känna och tolka somatiska markörer på ett adekvat sätt.

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Alexithymia is a multidimensional psychiatric construct indicating impaired emotional awareness. Its main features are (i) difficulties in identifying feelings and distinguishing them from bodily sensations, (ii) difficulties describing feelings to others, (iii) an externally oriented style of thinking, and (iv) a poor imaginal capacity. Alexithymia attracts great attention among practitioners and researchers in the clinical field because it has the potential to unveil the emotional disturbances occurring in several mental and physical diseases. As has recently been shown, most of these diseases are not only characterized by an altered perception of emotional states but, more generally, by an altered perception of internal bodily states, namely an altered interoceptive awareness. Consequently, a large body of research has focused on the interplay between alexithymia and interoceptive deficits. Yet, the extent of their association is to date unclear. This question is coupled with a further one concerning whether all or just a few features of alexithymia have clinical relevance and/or an association with interoceptive deficits. Indeed, differences in interoceptive ability are not the only candidate to explain differences in emotional awareness. Rather, the sociocultural environment the individual is surrounded by might play a role at least in the way emotions are expressed, but also in the way emotions are felt. This thesis considers both the mentioned issues, thus addressing the relationship that alexithymia entertains with interoceptive abilities on the one hand and with sociocultural factors on the other. I call these, respectively, the embodied and the embedded aspects of alexithymia. This manuscript is articulated in four parts. Part I introduces alexithymia and shows how the operationalization of the construct through time has facilitated the broadening of its conceptual nucleus. Part II focuses on the embodied aspect of alexithymia, namely its relationship with interoceptive deficits. This section outlines results from two empirical studies testing the association between alexithymia and self-reported interoceptive awareness across three large nationality samples. Part III examines the embedded aspect of alexithymia, namely its relationship with sociocultural factors. Together these studies show that (1) interoceptive deficits are a core component of alexithymia, although the latter cannot be reduced to the former, and (2) differences in externally–oriented thinking are empirically predicted by sociocultural factors more than by self-reported interoceptive awareness, even within the same ethnocultural group. In the fourth and last part, a general discussion summarizes the contribution of this work, raising criticisms regarding the current operationalization of alexithymia and the misunderstandings it can cause, especially when combined with a fallacious interpretation of nosological categories. The thesis concludes with the suggestion that adopting a stricter conception of alexithymia and analyzing the interplay between its interoceptive and cognitive subcomponents is beneficial for both emotion theory and clinical practice.

Interoception, the perception of the body's physiological state, is often studied in relation to emotion processing. Particularly, cardioception has been largely implicated in anxiety. Three related but distinct dimensions of interoception have recently emerged in the literature: sensibility (IS), accuracy (IAC), and awareness (IAW). Divergent findings regarding interoception and anxiety may result from lacking appreciation for interoceptive dimensions. Additionally, the role of cardiovascular afferent feedback in anxiety and interoception is largely unknown. Baroreflex sensitivity (BRS) has been implicated in interoceptive processes yet no known research directly measures this in relation to multidimensional cardioception. The present study aimed to assess the degree to which IS, IAC, IAW, and BRS predict trait anxiety at rest and during anticipatory anxiety. Results partially suggest increased IAC and BRS, but more variable IS and IAW in relation to trait anxiety. Overall, results show complex associations among factors, suggesting increased specificity among the constructs. Results highlight the importance of attention to construct validity and method variance in the study of interoceptive subdomains. Finally, the present study helps to pave the way for continued investigations concerning cardioception in enduring anxiety and the related role of the baroreflex in cardiac afferent processes. / PHD / Interoception, the perception of the body’s physiological state, is often studied in relation to emotion processing. Particularly, cardioception (the sense of cardiac activity, such as the perception of a racing heart) has been largely implicated in anxiety. Three related but distinct dimensions of interoception have recently emerged in the literature: sensibility (IS), accuracy (IAC), and awareness (IAW). Divergent findings regarding interoception and anxiety may result from lacking appreciation for interoceptive dimensions. Additionally, the role of cardiovascular feedback to the brain in anxiety and interoception is largely unknown. The baroreflex system rapidly modulates activity of the heart in accordance with short-term blood pressure changes. The sensitivity of this homeostatic baroreflex system (BRS) also plays a role in interoceptive processes, yet no known research directly measures this in relation to multidimensional cardioception. The present study aimed to assess the degree to which IS, IAC, IAW, and BRS predict dispositional anxiety at rest and during anticipatory anxiety. Results partially suggest increased IAC and BRS, but more variable IS and IAW in relation to dispositional anxiety. Overall, results show complex associations among factors, suggesting increased specificity among the variables. Results highlight the importance of attention to measurement precision and various ways to assess the dimensions of interoception. Finally, the present study helps to pave the way for continued research concerning perception of the heart’s activity in enduring anxiety and the related role of cardiovascular activity at various levels of conscious awareness. Ultimately, research on this topic is highly important for the eventual improvement of existing therapeutics for individuals regularly experiencing severe anxiety.

A substantial body of previous research suggests that the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) plays an important role in multiple aspects of emotion. These aspects include, but are not limited to, (1) generating, (2) experiencing, and (3) regulating one's own emotional state, as well as (4) facilitating the use of emotion-related information within goal-directed cognition and action selection. However, there is considerable controversy with regard to the distinct functional roles of various MPFC subregions. In this dissertation, I first provide a review of the theoretical and experimental literature to date in order to defend a plausible model of the hierarchical neural processes associated with each of the aspects of emotion highlighted above. This model proposes that different MPFC subregions each play distinct, but interactive, roles at or near the top of the respective hierarchical systems associated with those aspects of emotion. After reviewing this model, I then provide a description of four experiments that test the predictions of this model's claims regarding the roles of three distinct MPFC subregions: the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC), and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC). These experiments provide independent support for the claims that (1) rACC plays an important role in representing the conceptual meaning of one's felt emotional reactions, (2) DMPFC plays an important role in maintaining representations of one's own emotions within a consciously accessible state, and (3) VMPFC plays an important role in both appraising the emotional significance of one's current situation and triggering the somatic/visceral reactions associated with the generation of an emotional response. In the concluding section of the dissertation, I then integrate these findings together with the larger model and discuss important directions for future research as well as ways in which the model might be extended to include insights from recent advances in theoretical neuroscience associated with predictive coding.

<p>Biological drives such as hunger, thirst, and sexual reproduction are potent motivators of behavior. Extrinsic rewards in the environment (i.e. food, drink, money) are also important behavioral and cognitive motivators. In addition to the relevance of an extrinsic reward in meeting the needs of biological drives, an individual’s sensitivity to the physiological state of their body (interoceptive awareness) would also be expected to mediate motivation for these extrinsic primary rewards (i.e. food, drink). Importantly, a better characterization of the predicted behavioral and neural interactions between interoception, motivation, and memory systems can highlight novel targets for interventions to facilitate motivation and memory for adaptive behaviors and/or impede motivation and memory for maladaptive behaviors (i.e. addiction, relapse, overeating). </p><p> The present dissertation examines how individual differences in interoceptive awareness may modulate motivated memory formation via motivational and affective mechanisms. Specifically, interoceptive accuracy is associated with increased motivation for relevant primary rewards and enhanced encoding for these rewards. However, anxiety, negatively predicted by interoceptive accuracy, negatively predicts memory the next day. Furthermore, memory for relevant primary rewards was negatively predicted by insula-parahippocampal and ventral tegmental area-hippocampal background connectivity.</p> / Dissertation

Research over decades has demonstrated that emotions interact with various cognitive functions. In contrast with first-order cognition, studies exploring the influence of emotions on metacognition (i.e. the ability to reflect on and control our own cognitive processes) are still very sparse. The present thesis investigated how several emotional states influence metacognitive performance. We have considered different emotions (such as happiness, anxiety or depression) and different metacognitive measures (such as subjective difficulty, overall confidence or metacognitive efficiency). Altogether, our results provide evidence that emotional states can specifically influence the way individuals evaluate their own decisions, which exist independently of their first-order performance. Furthermore, our findings suggest that different emotions each exert a different impact on metacognition. For instance, inducing a sad mood reduces overall confidence, while induced anxiety leads to a decrease in metacognitive efficiency. However, predicting how an emotion will influence metacognition remains very difficult, as this seems to depend on many parameters. / Doctorat en Sciences psychologiques et de l'éducation / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Interoceptive sensitivity (IS) is the ability to feel one’s own bodilysignals accurately. The connection between IS, emotional processingand consecutive behavior is a popular research topic. In this study, Itried to replicate a study by Piech and colleagues from 2017. Theoriginal study reported on a correlation between strong IS and beingmore altruistic. In this replication attempt, I used the same methodologyas in the original study; a dictator game as a measure of altruistictendencies and a heartbeat detection task as a measure of IS. However,I did not find a relationship between strong IS and being more altruistic.An analysis of the new data indicates that a minor methodologicaldifference for this replication - using a purely hypothetical dictatorgame - resulted in a generally larger amount of money given away inthe test. This complicates interpretation, since this new result can beinterpreted either as resulting from individual differences in respondingto a hypothetical game (as compared to a real game), or from an actualnull relationship found between IS and altruism. The strength of therelationship reported in the original study is still questioned, afterarguments are made that the data in replicating most favorably supportthe null relationship being a valid estimate.